In the world of business, there is a fundamental difference between observing data and deriving meaningful insights from that data. It’s the difference between knowing what is happening and knowing what it means and what to do about it. In BCG, we called this the “so what” and getting to the “so what” was one of the most valuable skills we were taught as consultants.
This skill – the ability to transform raw observations into actionable recommendations that drive real business value – is a key component of creating a presentation that will convince stakeholders. In this article, we’ll cover what the “so what” is in practice, why it is so important to learn, and give you a step-by-step guide to follow.
Let’s dive in.
The “so what” is the meaningful insight you can take away from an analysis. It represents steps 6 and 7 in the McKinsey problem-solving process where you synthesize findings and develop recommendations.
It is called the “so what” because you need to put yourself in the shoes of your audience or stakeholders and ask yourself “so what, why does this analysis matter to me?”. It essentially answers the question “why should I care?”.
The “so what” means going beyond the obvious, basic observations to deduce the meaningful insights that can drive business value. Let’s look at some examples to make it more concrete.
The “so what” represents steps 6 and 7 in the McKinsey problem-solving process
Most people can observe and describe pieces of data, but the value lies in being able to interpret and contextualize this data to get to an actionable and meaningful insight. Below we’ll go over a few examples from the raw observation or data point all the way to the “so what”:
Getting to the "so what" means pushing for the underlying drivers and what you can do about them
The “so what” is not confined to just the end of a project when you’re wrapping up all analyses, nor is it only meant to be used as a tool for presentation creation.
Instead, pushing yourself to always ask “so what” at all steps of a project is one of the key ingredients to being effective and making sure you’re always on the right track to achieve whatever objective you’ve set out to reach.
When starting a project, you always want to take some time to think through what your stakeholders want to get out of the project and what the project output helps solve.
Ask yourself questions like “Once the stakeholders receive the output of this project, so what? Will it impact the business? Will it change the way they prioritize? Will it be implementable at all?” and “What is the central question you’re trying to answer? What would the theoretical resulting recommendation be?”. This helps guide you on which analyses you should spend time doing, as well as which sections and slides the final output or presentation should contain.
At the more granular levels of a project, you can still keep forcing yourself to ask “so what” to ensure you’re always on the right track. Before diving into finding data for an analysis, ask yourself “What do I hope this analysis will answer? What does it mean for the overall project question and stakeholder objective?”. After finishing the analysis, use the “so what” to guide your next steps: “Why is the results of this analysis important? What can we now do or not do? What are the next steps to keep pushing for an answer?”.
The “so what” is even relevant at the individual slide level. For any slide you create, ask yourself “What is the key takeaway from this slide? How does this fit into my overall presentation? Is it absolutely necessary to include this point to get my story across?”.
In the end, these are all permutations of the same key questions, just tailored for that particular step and level of the project. It all helps steer your work, keeps you from boiling the ocean, and ensures the results of your work will be impactful.
The "so what" is relevant at all stages and levels of a project
As mentioned, learning to get to the “so what” is one of the most important skills we were taught at BCG, and one of the reasons why top-tier consultants from firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain can continue to command such high rates.
The ability to extract meaningful insights in this way is important due to three main reasons:
First and foremost, using the “so what” method helps make you both more efficient and effective.
By asking yourself “so what” you’re continuously pushing yourself to actively decide if an analysis is worth doing by asking yourself what the analysis will tell you and how this will help you push your project forward. This in turn helps you only focus on analyses that actually move the needle and gives you a better feeling for when you “enough is enough” and you don’t need to dig deeper.
This enables faster decision-making because you have good enough answers faster, reduces analysis paralysis by focusing on actionable insights, and improves resource efficiency.
Secondly, using the “so what” method enables more value creation. As mentioned above, the method helps you focus on analyses that move the needle and are relevant for your overall project goals and stakeholder questions.
By asking “so what” you’re better able to identify which patterns in the data that matter and which are noise. You can better connect insights across different teams or business units, and identify insights that drive organizational change. In today’s information overload age, the ability to quickly transform data into a clear and actionable recommendation is paramount for competitive advantages.
Finally, embedding the “so what” methodology in everything you do helps you to position yourself much stronger internally and externally. The “so what” forces you to get to the actionable point and ruthlessly deleting or eliminating analyses/slides/sections that don’t add value to your points.
By only bringing important and relevant information to your stakeholders, whether internal or external, you’ll be able to position yourself as someone who truly understands the business and underlying drivers, and who doesn’t get stuck in unimportant details.
The entire point of getting to the “so what” is to go beyond the obvious observation. This means the first step should be to take a helicopter view of your analysis and ask yourself what the analysis is saying.
The "Five Whys" technique is a powerful tool for drilling down to root causes. Originally developed by Sakichi Toyoda for Toyota in the 1930s, the technique is quite simply forcing yourself to ask “why” five times in a row when faced with a problem or result.
Here is an example of the “Five Whys” from a logistics company:
Problem/observation: Delivery costs are too high compared to our budget
Resulting Insight: Implementing centralized fuel procurement could save $2M annually.
Keep going until you reach a root cause that, if addressed, would prevent the issue from recurring. You may need fewer or more than five whys – stop when you reach a cause you can actually address and that would prevent the problem.
Also, remember to involve the people who are closest to the process, as they often have the most relevant knowledge. Document your findings and solutions, and be prepared to revisit the analysis if the implemented solution doesn't fully resolve the issue
Once you’ve found the root cause/main conclusion of your analysis, you need to turn this into a recommendation for next steps and actions to be taken. If you can’t come up with anything, then your analysis is probably not useful in the project context and you can take it out of your presentation.
A recommendation is essentially the “so what” packaged for your stakeholder(s). Where the initial analysis is an observation, then the effective recommendation or “so what” draws out the key insights and places it in the big picture.
Getting to the "so what" means drawing out key insights and turning them into recommendations
To create high-quality recommendations, make sure they are:
The more decisive and specific you can be, the more value you can bring to the table. Push yourself to get to an insight early and don’t be too afraid to suggest the wrong solution. It’s much easier to assess, critique, and improve on specific solutions than general, fluffy recommendations.
The third and final step of getting to the “so what” is to take a step back and pressure-test it. To do this, ask yourself the following three questions:
You want to make sure you’re not biased in your recommendation or conclusion. Ask your teammates and colleagues in other departments to review your “so what” conclusion and see if they reach the same result. Are there areas where you are jumping to answers because you’re looking at it from a certain point of view? What if someone from a completely different background or team looked at it?
Common bias pitfalls and how to avoid them are:
Overconfidence Bias
Anchoring Bias
Sunk Cost Bias
Getting to the "so what" isn't a one-time process but rather an iterative method. In practice, this means:
Finally, you want to ask yourself if this really moves the needle. This is typically at the end of a project when putting together your final presentation.
Force yourself to look through all of your slides and ask yourself if this slide is 100% crucial to getting your point across. Make sure the titles of your slides are action titles that reflect the “so what” of each slide and read through only the action titles to make sure the story flows.
Delete any slides or analyses that don’t significantly contribute to your final recommendations or project ask. It can be hard, but the end result will be much clearer and stronger.
The “so what” means pushing yourself to go beyond the right analyses and connect the dots. Getting to the "so what" is the key skill that separates exceptional business analysis from basic reporting. It is a systematic approach to moving beyond surface observations that will serve you at all levels of a project and presentation.
The ultimate goal is not just to understand what's happening in your business, but to know exactly what actions will drive improvement. By following this comprehensive framework and consistently pushing beyond surface-level observations, you can deliver insights that create real business value and drive organizational change.
Remember: The question isn't just "What's happening?" but "What are we going to do about it?"
